The Cloning

by Washam, Wisner

  Maria, meanwhile, was beginning to feel antsy to the extreme. To insure her security, she was confined to the top floor on her wing of the hospital. All other patients on the floor had been moved elsewhere, so social contacts were few and far between for her. Of course, there were friendly doctors, nurses, and orderlies, but they were largely preoccupied with their regular duties. She couldn’t help wondering if Marc would ever reappear.

  Her father had stayed nearby for four days after the implant, but then he was called back to Santo Christo on government business, and it was a great relief to Maria that she no longer had to deal with his oppressive attention. However, he telephoned daily to assert his role in the pregnancy.

  The Diocese—overseeing everything relating to Maria—decided to minimize her interviews, both as a medical and a psychological precaution. After all, how much was there to be said about a pregnancy that was progressing perfectly normally? So the number of requests for interviews leveled off after the first few weeks, and the diversion of meeting the media was denied Maria.

  At first she had looked forward daily to reading about herself in the press. Seeing her face on the cover of Vanity Fair was a trip. And it was impressive to be on Time’s cover too, but soon she’d been featured by every single publication, and the thrill was gone. A feeling of monotony and isolation was building, so it was a pleasant surprise for her when Marc appeared unannounced in her doorway one afternoon in early June.

  “Look who came all the way from Cambridge,” she said with obvious sarcasm.

  “How’re you feeling?” he asked, curious to see her in bed in the middle of the afternoon.

  “Bored,” she replied bluntly.

  “Doctor DeFeo says you’re doing fine.”

  “I’m still bored. What brings you here?”

  “Well, the academic year’s all wrapped up, so I thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing.” Marc pulled up a chair, noted the stack of well-thumbed periodicals nearby. “What about reading a book if you’re so bored?” he suggested.

  “I’ve already read one book this week,” Maria informed him. “I’ve got to save my eyes.”

  “Are your eyes strong enough to watch TV?”

  “Oh, pulleezz! I’ve watched every soap opera since the day I came here . . . and every talk show too. I can’t stand any more disasters.”

  “Do you read your fan mail? Father Reilly says you’re getting lots.”

  “Tons of it! There’s a special room down the hall. They bring in like bags of it every day. I tried to read some of it, but it so depressing. Most of them think I’m like a saint or something. They want me to cure them and things like that. It’s weird.”

  “So what are you doing with those letters?” Marc asked.

  “Some nuns come and pick them up. They answer every single one.”

  “Have you had any visitors?”

  “Cardinal Dugan,” she replied, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Big whoop!”

  “Is that all?”

  “Well, the nuns come by every day and say a prayer for me. And Father Reilly comes sometimes.”

  “You haven’t seen any friends?”

  “No. I’ve called some girls I knew in school, but they’ve been busy with their term papers and finals.”

  “Too busy for a conversation?”

  “No, we talked, but . . . I can’t explain it . . . somehow they seem different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like, I don’t know, it’s crazy. I mean, they’re nice and all, but it’s almost like they’re afraid of me.”

  “Maybe they’re jealous,” he ventured.

  “Ha!” she laughed derisively. “Jealous of being locked up in a hospital?”

  “They probably don’t see it that way. They look at you like some sort of mega-celebrity.”

  “I don’t know, but anyway, they’re not lining up to visit me. My sorority sent a bouquet of flowers. It looked like something for a funeral.”

  Marc detected a note of sadness in her voice. Or was it just loneliness? Whatever it was he didn’t like it. It wasn’t the sound of a healthy young woman.

  “Are you exercising?”

  “Are you kidding? They force me to the workout room twice a day. Don’t talk to me about exercise!” she said with a sigh.

  “But you’re still bored.”

  “Wouldn’t you be? Cooped up in this place. I’m going out of my skull.”

  Marc was concerned. There were too many months of her pregnancy remaining, and her psychological state seemed low if not downright depressed. “What would you like to do?” he inquired.

  “Go to a mall,” Maria replied without a second’s hesitation.

  He remembered how passionately she’d wanted to go shopping the first time he’d seen her in Rome. Maybe an outing would energize her, he thought. “I think I can arrange that.”

  Her face instantly brightened. “You can?”

  “Sure. I’ve got nothing else to do, now that the semester’s over,” he smiled.

  *

  Half an hour later, they were cruising toward the suburbs in his Ferrari, music blasting from the radio. The wind carrying the scents of summer blew through Maria’s dark hair, and Marc noticed that there was a sparkle in her eyes again.

  “Can we get some pizza?” she asked.

  “Why not? The mall’s huge. They’ve got everything.”

  She was on the edge of her seat as he wheeled into a parking spot, and she jumped out before he’d even switched off the motor.

  “Get back in here!” he called to her.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, poking her head back inside.

  “Put these on,” Marc instructed, handing her a pair of dark glasses from the glove compartment, “unless you want to spend all your time signing autographs.”

  Maria dutifully put on the dark glasses, and Marc did likewise before they entered the mall. The sight of neon and the scent of new merchandise instantly eased her weeks of deprivation. She moved from one shop to the next with an intensity he’d never witnessed, her eyes rapidly sweeping the stock for anything that might possibly interest her. In the music shop, she selected a dozen new CDs, then turned to Marc.

  “I don’t have any money. Do you have some plastic on you?”

  “Sure,” he said, reaching for his wallet.

  “I’ll have my father repay you, don’t worry.”

  “Do I look worried?” he asked.

  She glanced at him. “You look fine,” she said with a grin as she took his credit card and handed it to the clerk who, fortunately, paid no attention to Marc’s name.

  They continued through the mall, stopping in almost every shop. In one, she spotted some fancy gizmos to hold her hair back in a ponytail. She couldn’t decide which color was best, so she took six different kinds, then moved on to the maternity shop next door. After rifling through several racks, she decided that it was too early to start buying maternity clothes.

  “Oh, there’s the pizza parlor,” she exulted. “I thought I smelled something good.” She dragged Marc in by the arm and ordered a pizza-with-everything and a diet Coke for each of them. “Okay?”

  “Fantastic,” he replied agreeably, glad to have a chance to get off his feet. The pizza-with-everything obviously appealed to Maria because she consumed her half with gusto, then asked Marc for one slice of his portion.

  “Okay, but don’t tell DeFeo.”

  Afterwards, they began making their way down the other side of the mall, one shop at a time until she caught him looking at his watch.

  “Are you tired?”

  “My feet are. I wasn’t born to shop like some people.”

  “Okay, we’ll go, but just let me look in one more store,” she pleaded, leading him into a dress shop that displayed a line of funky merchandise.

  Her fingers expertly plied through the racks as she checked prices and sizes, colors and textures. A crumpled velvet dress in dark aqua struck her fancy. She held it u
p to herself, checking her appearance with a careful examination in a mirror.

  “What do you think?”

  Marc shrugged. “I don’t know. It looks nice to me.”

  “Is the color good on me?”

  “I’m not into colors,” he confessed.

  “Except on blondes, huh?”

  The remark caught him unprepared, and before he could reply, they were interrupted by a saleswoman, a person of considerable girth.

  “Can I help you,” she asked pleasantly.

  “Do you have this in a six?” Maria asked.

  “I’ll see,” the woman replied as she began to rummage through the rack of dresses.

  Maria held the dress up to herself again, giving another appraisal of the effect in the mirror. “I’m not sure about this color,” she said, and, without thinking, removed her dark glasses to get a truer look at the material. At that moment, the saleswoman turned back to Maria and gasped.

  “Oh, my God! It’s herself,” she cried, simultaneously making the sign of the cross. She then fell to the floor in a dead faint with a loud thud. The manager rushed over.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked Maria, and even as she posed the question, she too recognized the face from the cover of so many magazines. “You’re Maria!! You’re the Holy Mother!!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Maria tried to shush her, but the woman was totally out of control. “It’s the Holy Mother!” she continued to scream.

  “We’d better get hell out of here,” Marc said, taking Maria by the arm. “And put your glasses back on.”

  But it was too late. Other members of the staff, attracted by the commotion, began to gather, blocking their way among the dress racks. And even though Maria was now wearing the dark glasses, her identity had been established. Customers joined the group of awed gawkers.

  One elderly man grabbed Maria’s hand and began kissing it ecstatically. “Bless me, Maria, please bless me!”

  The janitor dropped his mop, fell to his knees, and kissed Maria’s skirt. “Forgive my sins, Holy Mother! Forgive me.”

  The stock boy, his eyes like saucers, grabbed his cell phone to call his family to come to the mall immediately.

  “Let us out, please,” Marc asked, trying to push his way through the curious crowd that was growing by the second. Some became hysterical when they realized whose presence they were near. Someone turned over a display of belts, tangling feet and adding to the confusion. Marc finally maneuvered a path to the door of the shop, but the group outside had become a sizable crowd that blocked the exit completely.

  “Let me touch her,” one screamed.

  “Move away, I want to get nearer!” others pleaded. Some began to push and shove.

  “I’ve sinned, Mother.”

  “Please bless my little boy . . . just touch him, oh please!”

  “Oh blessed Mary!”

  Racks of clothes began to topple in the press of humanity.

  Marc caught a glimpse of a burly, black security guard in the crowd. “Help us get out of here before you have a riot,” he yelled. “Hurry!”

  Experienced in crowd control, the guard managed to make his way quickly through the crush of people. “Okay folks, clear the way, stand back,” he advised the crowd with authority. “Just follow me, lady,” he instructed Maria. “I’ll get you out the back way.”

  With the guard running interference, they made their way hurriedly into a stock room at the back of the store where he locked the door, then led them through a maze of service hallways that eventually came to a loading platform at the back of the mall. He stuck with them all the way to the red Ferrari. They jumped in just as a mob of people emerged from the front of the mall and headed in their direction. Marc gunned the motor.

  “Don’t stop for nothing!” the security man urged them as they squealed away.

  “Wait!” Maria screamed. “I lost all my packages.”

  “It’s too late now,” Marc replied and kept his foot on the accelerator.

  *

  Back in the safety of the hospital, Marc tried to divert Maria from the frightening experience with a game of gin rummy. As she dealt, he asked, “You feeling okay now?”

  “I’m not sick, for heaven’s sake,” she snapped. “I’m just mad! The jerks. I really wanted those CDs.”

  “I’ll replace them for you, don’t worry.”

  “And what about the hair bands?”

  “I’ll get one of the nuns to go shopping for you,” he volunteered.

  “Oh, that’ll be just perfect,” she snapped. “They have such an eye for fashion. You think I’ll ever be able to go shopping again?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed honestly. “Maybe after the baby’s born. Or you could order some things on line.”

  “Terrific!” she groused, playing a card. “I just wish I’d gotten that dress. It was rad.”

  Her priorities amused Marc. The two of them could literally have been crushed to death by the crowd, but she was thinking only about the velvet dress. He laughed appreciatively.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. Gin.”

  There was a knock on the door. It was Cardinal Dugan who had rushed to the hospital as soon as he’d gotten news of the incident in the mall.

  “Are you all right? Were you hurt?” he asked Maria immediately.

  “I’m great,” she replied.

  “Has Doctor DeFeo seen you?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t need to be examined,” she assured Dugan. “I’m fine.”

  “Thanks be to God,” the prelate said, then turned to Marc. “You! How dare you take her outside without my permission?”

  “I had no idea the public would overreact like that,” Marc replied contritely.

  “I can’t imagine why you’re surprised! She’s carrying the most precious gift that’s ever been given to mankind. She must be guarded at all costs.”

  “He was just trying to be nice,” Maria interjected in Marc’s behalf, “which is more than I can say for anybody else.”

  The Cardinal ignored her implication and continued with his own line of thought. “I received a call from the Holy Father. He’s grateful that you’re safe, and he looks forward to seeing you.”

  Surprised, Maria asked, “He’s coming here?”

  “No. You’ll be going there,” Dugan replied.

  Maria turned to Marc. “What’s he talking about?”

  “You’ll be going to the Vatican for the birth of your baby,” Marc said quietly.

  “Since when?” she demanded.

  “Since the Pope decided,” he replied.

  “How long have you known this?”

  “For a few weeks, I guess,” he confessed somewhat sheepishly.

  Color sprang to Maria’s cheeks. “Why couldn’t somebody have the decency to tell me?” she flared. “I wish you’d at least ask my opinion about something once in a while. But what the hey . . . I’m only the mother!” She threw down the deck of cards and stormed out of the room.

  Marc turned to the Cardinal. “I was going to break it to her gently.”

  “Where? In the middle of Harvard Square?” Dugan snorted.

  “Get off my back, will you? Don’t you realize how you’ve treated the poor girl? Keeping her a prisoner in this hospital room. What kind of a life is this? And what kind of a mother do you expect her to be if you ship her off to the Vatican and keep her cloistered like some geriatric nun? She’s a young woman, for God’s sake . . . who’s been spoiled from the day she was born. You keep this up, and we’ll lose her!”

  The Cardinal, interpreting this as an implied threat, stopped short. “What are you saying exactly?”

  “I’m saying,” Marc continued, “that she’ll either have a nervous breakdown, or she’ll run away.”

  “Mind your tongue,” Dugan snorted dismissively.

  “I want her to have a real place to live in Rome . . . someplace that’s like a home. Do you think you can handle that
, or do I have to go directly to the Pope?”

  Dugan’s eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me, Solovino?”

  “Yeah, I guess I am. And while I’m at it, I want a nice private room and bath for myself . . . so I can keep an eye on things.”

  “You’re going to Rome?”

  “I don’t think I have a choice,” Marc replied.

  *

  After the mall experience, Marc realized what a truly precarious psychological state she was in, being the ultimate center of attraction in many ways, yet deprived of most normal relationships, relationships that could provide emotional stability. He was no psychiatrist, but he knew that this might have profound implications on his experiment if allowed to go uncontrolled.

  He asked Nora to check on the whereabouts of some of Maria’s sorority friends from Stephens, and she found that two of them from the Boston area were at home with their families for the summer, so a visit to Mass General was arranged. Lucy and Jennifer were both dressed to the nines, Marc noted when he greeted them at the hospital entrance; they looked as if they were calling on visiting royalty.

  On the elevator, he explained that he hadn’t told Maria that their visit had been arranged. “Just act like you stopped by for a friendly talk, okay?”

  The girls agreed nervously, clearly feeling uncomfortable about an encounter with a friend who may or may not have undergone a transformation into something totally unexpected. Maria was thrilled to see them, and when the girls got a good look at her, they became more relaxed because it was obvious that she hadn’t morphed into a queen . . . or a monster. After a little stilted conversation about how she was feeling and how they’d been watching her on TV, it was apparent that she was the same old Maria, so their talk reverted to the norm.

  “There’s this divine guy at the camp where I’m a counselor, he’s really a hunk. Joey’s his name, “ Lucy told her friends. “On the first day, I take one look at him, and I say to myself, this one is for me. And would you believe it, before the day is over he asks me out? We’ve been seeing each other like every single night. I think it’s the best summer of my life!”

  “My family wants me to go to England for a month,” Jennifer interjected, “but I have this great apprenticeship at WBGH, and there’s the neatest guy in the sales department there. He just graduated last year from Penn. We went to a movie at the mall last week, and you’ll never guess who we saw. Claudette and that Sigma Chi who used to go out with Liz, remember?”